NOTE: THE DEFINING
GENERATION is a project begun by Doug and Pam Sterner in 2002 and
completed in 2006. Initially is was prepared for publication as a book,
however with their changing focus to development of a database of military
awards, was postponed indefinitely so they could concentrate on that
larger, more important work. The stories found herein however, need to be
shared, and they have consented to make this compilation available in this
format. While each story can stand alone, it is recommended that for
continuity, readers will be best served by reading the chapters
sequentially from first to last.

The Defining
Generation

-

Defining
Entertainment

Adrian Cronauer

"Having had a film made
about my military escapades has led to some rewarding
experiences. For example, veterans come up to me, shake my hand,
and thank me for helping them get through `Nam. I now fully
realized how much Armed Forces Radio meant; it was an antidote
to culture shock and homesickness. Looking back, I think we were
successful because we gave our listeners what they wanted: a
sound as much as possible like stations they listened to back
home."

Adrian Cronauer

Good Morning Vietnam

World
War II sparked more movies than perhaps any other event in world history.
During the nearly four year period of that conflict that saw 16 million
Americans mobilized to fight on five continents, war movies were cranked
out by the scores each year. Most followed the same general theme: this
war is just, our enemies are evil and must be stopped, and American men
and women are fighting and dying for you who remain at home. They were as
essential to the war effort by inspiring young men and women to enlist, by
promoting rationing and war bond purchases at home, and in lifting spirits
during some of our Nation's darkest hours. In the decades that followed
the end of the war even more movies were cranked out to tell the stories
of heroes, battles, and to render proper honor to all who had served.

The
Korean War is often called The
Forgotten War. This is certainly true in terms of war movies; only the
War of 1812 and the Spanish-American War received less reproduction on the
Big Screen. Only four movies of the Korean War were produced between 1954
and 1962: Bridges at TokyoRi, Battle Hymn, Pork Chop Hill, and the
Manchurian Candidate. Perhaps part of the reason for this lack of
movies was the fact that the Korean War, coming only five years after the
World War, became eclipsed by the larger and more popular remembrance of
those days. Further, a good number of the men who fought in
Korea
were the same soldiers who had fought in the earlier war.

Whatever
the reason, the Korean War did get plenty of attention in 1970 with the
release of the movie M*A*S*H, the irreverent comedy about Army surgeons
and one prominent nurse working at a
Mobile
Army
Surgical
Hospital
in
Korea
. From a military standpoint the movie was ahead of its time. World War II
had been depicted with its own share of comedy from big screen movies to
the highly popular TV show McHale's
Navy. But with the war in Vietnam a public issue and the M*A*S*H
making light of military inefficiencies and failings amid human sacrifice
and suffering, it was one Korean War movie not welcomed by military
leadership in spite of its popularity with the public. I was still in
training at Fort Leonard Wood,
Missouri
, when M*A*S*H was released and we were all somewhat surprised that it was
not allowed to be shown at the Post Theaters.*
Of course even that was one more example of military idiocy…on every
soldier's first weekend pass he headed straight for town to find a
civilian theater showing what the Army didn't want us to watch.

Meanwhile,
in the 1960s and '70s,
Vietnam
seems to be the last thing the American public wanted to watch a movie
about. John Wayne's The Green Berets,
released in 1968, was the first and perhaps only movie of that war in the
pattern of the old World War II movie. Presented with an emotionally
positive story line, even with the increased anti-war sentiment that had
arisen by the time of the movie's release it left many young men inspired
to enlist and volunteer to become Army Green Berets. In imitable WWII
fashion the movie closes with the inveterate Wayne telling a small Vietnam
orphan who has just lost his Green Beret guardian, "You are what this
war is about," as he walks into the sunset.

The
two Vietnam War movies that followed and that were released before the war
ended in 1975 was The Losers,
more of an adventure tale of Vietnam Vet bikers returning to Southeast
Asia on a rescue mission and 1974's Hearts
and Minds, a controversial anti-war documentary. In 1978 The
Boys in Company C and The Deer
Hunter were released. While the latter was a well done and highly
acclaimed artistic work, it was less a war movie than a tragic account of
the veterans of that war. The Boys
in Company C was blatantly anti-war and certainly not a movie any
self-respecting Marine would recommend. Apocalypse
Now was released the following year and again portrayed the war in a
sad and unrealistic light. It was followed by adventure stories tied to
the war, a PTSD suffering Rambo
fighting crooked cops in
Idaho
and an embittered James Braddock suffering from flashbacks and returning
to
Vietnam
to rescue abandoned American Prisoners of War. Both were followed up with
multiple sequels.

For
me, 1986's Platoon was the first
real movie about the Vietnam War
since John Wayne's production eighteen years earlier. Having served with
the 25th Infantry Division at Dau Tieng near the Michelin Rubber
Plantation I found it eerily realistic. Many of my veteran friends
however, especially those who served up north, found it far-fetched. The
range of veterans' reactions to the movie perhaps speaks to the
complicated nature and vast differences of the war. Further, Platoon
with scenes of heavy drug use, war atrocities, and internal strife and
murder, provided ample fodder to those who had opposed the war. Certainly
those things occurred during the war, but these were exceptions and not
the rule. Nevertheless, it became a point of vindication for those who saw
in that war reason to despise the military and to suspect the veterans who
had returned from
Vietnam
.

At
last in 1987 a Vietnam War movie was released that enabled us to look back
on the war that divided our generation, indeed our nation, and laugh in
the face of tragedy. Good Morning
Vietnam told the story of Air Force disk jockey Adrian Cronauer, an
uproariously funny and anti-establishment radio broadcaster in
Vietnam
. The film starred the immensely popular Robin Williams whose "Gooooooood
Morning Vietnam" became one of the most recognized movie one-liners
in history.

Adrian
Cronauer was in fact, a real disk jockey for the Armed Forces Vietnam
Radio (AFVN) station…and in fact, authored the story behind the script.
Based loosely on his life, producers of the movie avoided having Arian
meet Robin Williams during filming. The real Cronauer is much more
mainstream than the character depicted in the movie and in the process of
developing the comedy they wanted Williams character to develop naturally
according to his comedic talent.

Born
in
Pittsburgh
,
Pennsylvania
, on
September 8, 1938
, the real Adrian Cronauer was the only son of a local machinist and a
teacher. His introduction to television came when he was a guest on a
local amateur hour at age 12. While attending high school he volunteered
at a local Public Broadcasting System station and was doing broadcast
announcing when he enrolled at the
University
of
Pittsburgh
. There he was instrumental in starting the campus radio station,
broadcasting from it as well. In 1962 he attended
American
University
in
Washington
,
D.C.
to major in broadcasting and was only 11 credit hours from graduation when
the Selective Service board beckoned. He enlisted in the Air Force
believing it posed greater opportunity than becoming an infantryman or
other ground combat soldier in the Army. In the Air Force he trained for
broadcasting and media operations.

After
working initially in the mundane operations of cranking out
"cookie-cutter" training films he was at last sent to
Greece
to serve with an Armed Forces Radio station. Broadcasts from these
official military stations were standard around the world with a common
format designed to keep soldiers deployed to strange and foreign lands
somewhat in touch with home, both in terms of music and news. The
programming was generally benign, heavily controlled for appropriate
content, and censored. Though
Adrian
was not the anti-establishment, damn-the-rules renegade portrayed in the
movie, he was a good airman with a naturally comedic talent and livened
his broadcasts enough to elevate them above the traditional
put-everyone-to-sleep military radio history. When he had one year
remaining in his enlistment he was offered the chance to return home to
resume making dry training and cheesy anti-VD films, or broadcasting radio
programs in either
South Korea
or
Vietnam
. He opted for the warmer climate and exotic nature of
Vietnam
. He arrived in the Spring of 1965 shortly after Congress, prompted by the
Gulf
of
Tonkin
incident, authorized military force and the buildup for war in
Vietnam
had begun.

Recalling
his tour of duty in
Vietnam
in light of the subsequent movie about it,
Adrian
tells people, "If I had done all those things they showed me doing in
that movie, I'd still be sitting in
Fort
Leavenworth
(military prison) in
Kansas
." The movie was meant to be entertaining, which of course it
certainly was. Much of it was based upon the chronology of
Adrian
's military career…arriving in
Vietnam
from
Greece
at the beginning of the buildup, and mirrored to a smaller degree his
unique approach to radio despite the fact it was an official military
broadcast.

In
Vietnam
he did in fact coin the "Gooooood Morning Vietnam" opening that
became his trademark, though it was more practical than artistic. He
explains that coming into the studio in the early mornings, still
half-asleep and watching the second hand on the wall clock tick down to
"air time" too quickly, the long and drawn out phrase came him a
cushion to shuffle papers, grab a record, and collect his thoughts. In the
program that followed he then broke from the norm to play popular songs
that mirrored the "hit parade" at home, joke around, and make
light of serious matters. In the midst of the war he enabled tentative
young men in far away posts to laugh. Decades later in the aftermath of
the conflict his story enabled a generation divided by that war to look
back and laugh once again.

Adrian
Cronauer was among the earliest of the American forces to arrive in
Vietnam
and, as a broadcast journalist he was able to get out of the studio to
interview troops in the field. It gave him a broad perspective of the
conflict. "One of the reactions I got from them (the soldiers) was of
frustration," he says. "They would be in hot pursuit of an enemy
unit and then they would have to disengage because the unit would cross
over some invisible barrier or border…(or)…they'd be sitting there
receiving incoming fire, and not only were they not permitted to return
the fire, but they weren't even allowed to load their weapons without
permission from headquarters."[i]
On the air, though with more discretion than he was later portrayed,
Adrian
was able to speak to those frustrations and help soldiers find comedy in
the bureaucratic problems that made their job more difficult.

"Cronauer
balanced innovation, imagination and enthusiasm with practicality and
realism. He pushed as much as he could for reforms within the military
broadcasting hierarchy, but there were times when he knew it would be
senseless to push any harder. He met resistance from those who were deeply
invested in military broadcast operations, from those who worked without
incentive and motivation and from those who simply feared making
waves."[ii]
After serving a one-year tour of duty he returned home to an honorable
discharge, aware that the face of Armed Forces Radio was irrevocably
changed. Incoming new disk jockeys tried to imitate him, a few even
reviving his "Gooooood Morning Vietnam" greeting. Four years
later when I arrived in
Vietnam
the AFVN icon was Chickenman: "Da…da…da…da…He's
everywhere! He's everywhere!" From 1965 to 1966 Adrian Cronauer's
popularity on the airwaves had taught the military that it was indeed true
that laughter is the best medicine.

Adrian
was then and remains today, proud of his Vietnam War service despite the
problems evident from that period of time. "
Vietnam
was a no-win war," he says today. "When you don't have an
objective to win, you've reduced the whole effort to waking up in the
morning and seeing how any NVA and VC you can shoot--if you were allowed
to shoot at all. It became a body-count game. But that was a political
decision forced upon the troops. The troops never wanted to do that."[iii]

After
returning home
Adrian
built an advertising agency, managed a radio station, was program director
of a television station, and a TV news anchorman. For seven years he
worked in
New York City
voicing television and radio commercials. He taught broadcasting at the
university level and wrote a textbook on radio and TV announcing that is
still used in many colleges and universities. While working in
New York
he also obtained a master's degree in media studies.

In
the mid-1980s two of the most popular programs on television were M*A*S*H
and WKRP in Cincinnati, a sit-com about broadcasters in a radio station.
Adrian
thought perhaps a combination of the two scenarios would provide a doubly
humorous sit-com based on his own experiences as a war-time radio
personality. He wrote a pilot for just such a program but it was rejected
as too timely--
Vietnam
was still a war people wanted to try and forget. With the help of fellow
Vietnam Veteran and friend Ben Moses, the idea for Good Morning Vietnam was written in 1979 for the popular TV
"Movie of the Week" but again was rejected. Finally in 1982 the
two men managed to sell their screenplay to a
Hollywood
producer and from there it eventually made its way into the hands of Robin
Williams. The character of
Adrian
was made to order for Robin's impulsively comedic mind and the producers
gave him free reign to further develop the onscreen character of Adrian
Cronauer, Vietnam War disk jockey. His masterful portrayal subsequently
earned him his first nomination for an Academy Award.

Robin
and the real Adrian Cronauer met at a cast party only after all the scenes
for the movie had been shot. Adrian and his wife Jeane flew to
Hollywood
to attend the star-studded celebration at Robin Williams' home. Though the
movie would turn the disk jockey into something of a celebrity in his own
right, at that time the couple were just two quite ordinary people excited
to see a dream realized and enamored by their surroundings. Jeane recalls
moving through the crowd with her camera trying to snap photos of her
husband visiting with members of the cast. At one point she found
Adrian
visiting with Bruno Kirby who played the jealous, comedically-impaired
Second Lieutenant Hauk and a third attendee at the party. After shifting
about in efforts to get a good shot of her husband and Kirby together she
finally politely asked the third man if he would mind stepping aside for a
moment. He smiled, moved, she took the picture she wanted, and then Jeane
turned back to the stranger to thank him.

"That's
perfectly fine," he stated as he reached out to shake her hand.
"Actually it's kind of refreshing…I'm not usually asked to do that
(step out of a picture). By the way, I'm Robert DeNiro."

Jeane
flushes with embarrassment when she shares that story. "I can't
believe I asked Robert DeNiro to step out of a picture. I asked him if I
could take another and he graciously smiled as he stepped next to
Adrian
so I could take another."

The
great success of the movie, quite different from anything before other
than perhaps M*A*S*H, was that it was both fun and it was funny.
Essentially it told the story of Vietnam Veterans more than the war. Those
who had been anti-establishment and anti-military were captivated by
Williams' humor and the story of an anti-establishment disk jockey who
worked within and revolutionized his own area of the military
establishment. Adrian Cronauer gave them a new perspective on Vietnam
Veterans heretofore generally disdained and suspected.

Veterans
of all wars laughed in hysteria at the one-line comebacks they recalled
from their own days in service like a senior NCO barking "Don't call
me 'sir!' I work for a living." Bruno Kirby's portrayal of the
inexperienced and overly-self-impressed Second Lieutenant Hauk reminded us
of at least one "butter bar" we had served with or under.
Vietnam Veterans flashed back in positive ways through the generous
helping of music from our era, panoramic views of green jungle and rice
paddies (although the film was actually shot in Thailand), the sound of
(helicopter) rotor blades, and the sight of fresh troops marching in new
uniforms across the hard tarmac of Tan Son Nhut Airport near Saigon.

It
would be a grave mistake to over-analyze the movie itself. Indeed many of
the movie watchdogs had a field day with factual errors such as songs
being played in 1965-66 that did not come out until later dates or Pete
Rose being called a rookie baseball player at the end of the film, when in
fact his rookie year was 1963. The bottom line was that
Adrian
and Ben Moses penned the screenplay to be entertaining and make us laugh.
It was effective on both counts.

What
perhaps is most overlooked about the movie's success was that it opened
the door for a healing process in our generation. Peacenicks and veterans,
liberals and conservatives, hippies and war heroes found themselves all
laughing together at what had once been a bitter memory. Other events
would further that healing process along; within a year plans were being
made by others for a Vietnam War Memorial to heal the wounds inflicted by
that war. As one of the first "celebrities" from among our
ranks,
Adrian
lent his time, energy and support that that and other efforts.

Meanwhile,
profits from Good Morning Vietnam
enabled
Adrian
to return to school to pursue a law degree from the
University
of
Pennsylvania
, where he was also a Special Projects Editor of the University
of Pennsylvania Law Review. For years he was Senior Attorney with the
Washington
,
D.C.
firm of Burch and Cronauer. More recently he put his law practice "on
hold" to serve as Special Assistant to the Director of the POW/MIA
Office at the Department of Defense. He remains a popular speaker and, in
1992 when he was invited to Australia for dedication of that country's
Vietnam War Memorial, he returned to the airwaves for a four-hour
broadcast complete with '60s era music that provided fond and moving
memories to Australian Vietnam War veterans.

Today
Adrian
's busy schedule puts him regularly in touch with thousands of Vietnam
Veterans. He's learned to overlook the disappointment many of them show
upon learning that instead of meeting the Adrian Cronauer they expected
from the movie, the real
Adrian
is very much like themselves. Comfortable in a suit and tie, with more
degrees than a thermometer, and a record of building successful
businesses, he is a husband, father, and grandfather not unlike veterans
of previous generations. He is despite the erroneous stereotypes of the
Vietnam
vet, an example of who we are and what we can achieve if we are willing to
simply laugh at ourselves.

*
The movie Woodstock
was also banned from the Post Theaters. I finally saw it a year later,
projected on a white sheet tacked to a building at LZ Nancy in
Vietnam
.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The authors extend our thanks to the following who granted personal
interviews for this work: Roger Donlon (MOH), Robin Moore,
Don Bendell, Jimmy Stanford, Vince Yrineo, Sammy L. Davis (MOH),
Linda Alvarado, Karen Offutt, Lieutenant General Carol Mutter, Sir
Edward Artis, General Colin L. Powell, Katharine Houghton, Adrian
Cronauer, Jan Scruggs, Delbert Schmeling, and Peter Lemon (MOH).Our thanks to the staff of the following who either wrote or
allowed reprint of their own works for this book: Dr.
Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, Don Bendell, Congressman Sam Farr,
Congressman Thomas Petri, Congressman Mike Honda, Congressman Jim
Walsh, Governor Jim Doyle, and Scott Baron.Our special thanks also to the staff of the following who provided
information and fact-checked the chapters related to their
subject: Staff of Senator John Kerry, Staff of (then) Senator
Hillary Clinton, Staff of Senator Jim Webb
A SPECIAL THANKS also to Dr. Marguerite Guzman Bouvard for his
assistance in writing and editing the entire section on the Role of
the Sexes.